Warner Bros. Discovery Locks Up French Open Broadcast Rights in 10-Year Deal
WBD continues to make live sports additions as observers wait to see if it will lose its NBA rights.
As it explores every last possible option for retaining at least some NBA rights following the 2024-25 season, Warner Bros. Discovery is not sitting on its heels when it comes to its sports aspirations. As first reported by Variety, the company has locked up a deal to broadcast the French Open tennis tournament starting in 2025, stealing the rights to the spring Grand Slam event from Comcast and NBC. The deal brings the rights to another marquee sporting event to WBD’s channels and streaming services and will create some interesting synergies within the Venu Sports joint venture service thanks to Disney’s ownership of the rights for the other three tennis Grand Slams.
Key Details:
- TNT Sports will assume broadcasting duties for the French Open in 2025, in a 10-year, $650 million deal.
- ESPN holds the rights to the other three Grand Slam tennis tournaments, meaning all four will be available on Venu Sports in 2025.
- WBD has also sublicensed a package of College Football Playoff games from ESPN.
The Athletic was the first to report the financial details of WBD’s new agreement to acquire French Open broadcasting rights in the United States. The company will pay $650 million to air the tournament for 10 years starting in 2025, with its cable networks and its on-demand streaming service Max offering live coverage.
NBC has held the television rights to the French Open since 1983, while the other three Grand Slam tennis tournaments — the Australian Open, the U.S. Open, and Wimbledon — air on the Disney-owned ESPN. The switch from NBC Sports to TNT Sports for the French Open means that all four Grand Slam events will be shown on Venu Sports starting in 2025. Venu is a joint venture service being created by Disney, Fox, and WBD to offer the sports rights of all three companies directly to consumers.
This is only the most recent high-profile deal made by TNT Sports in recent months. In May, WBD agreed to terms on a pact with ESPN to sublicense a selection of College Football Playoff games starting this year, and expanding to include quarterfinals games in 2026. The deals mean that Venu Sports will be the exclusive platform for viewers who want to stream every CFP game and every Grand Slam tennis tournament on the same app.
Does New Deal Mean WBD is Out on the NBA?
Swiping the French Open from NBC seems all the more fitting considering that NBC appears poised to steal TNT’s NBA package at the end of the next season. Reports indicate that NBC is ready to pay up to $2.5 billion per season to acquire the parcel of NBA games currently owned by TNT, including conference finals every other year and a large selection of regular season games. WBD is exploring all of its options for keeping NBA rights, from suing to retain its current bundle to asking the league to carve out a new package of games from inventory currently found only on regional sports networks.
As things stand, ESPN and ABC are set to pay $2.6 billion to retain the “A” package of NBA games, including exclusive access to the NBA Finals over the course of the deal. Amazon’s Prime Video will pay $1.8 billion+ per season for the “C” package, which includes regular season and playoff rights. The “B” package is the selection of games held by TNT until 2025, at which point they look likely to head to NBC and Peacock.
The premium price agreed to by WBD to get the annual event from Roland-Garros could suggest that it doesn’t have much hope of getting a big parcel of NBA games in the future. The Athletic reports that NBC’s former deal to offer the tournament paid around $12 million per season, less than one-fifth of the amount that WBD will pay to broadcast the French Open starting in 2025. If WBD thought it would be shelling out another $1 to $2 billion per year for NBA rights, it feels unlikely that it would pay so much more than NBC was to get the French Open.
WBD already carries the European broadcast rights to the French Open via its Eurosports platform. The company first acquired the rights in 2022 and its initial deal runs through 2026.
TNT Sports representatives have said that they’ll continue to seek out more sports deals regardless of their negotiations with the NBA as talks between the Association and WBD continue. In addition to the French Open, TNT Sports offers NHL regular season games, NASCAR races, U.S. Soccer matches, NCAA March Madness games, and MLB regular and postseason contests via TNT’s sister channel TBS. Live sports shown on TBS, TNT, and truTV are also simulcast on Max’s Bleacher Report Sports add-on.
Max
Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library, along with exclusive Max Originals. There are hubs for content from TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, TCM, Cartoon Network, Travel Channel, ID, and more. Watch hit series like “The Last of Us,” “House of the Dragon,” “Succession,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and more. Thanks to the B/R Sports add-on, users can watch NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.